Originally Posted by
WHBM
It wasn't British Cally that I thought would have three, but BA, and to London overall rather than just LGW. Anyway, as the OAG in question is November 1987, the B Cal takeover had not happened yet.
The B Cal transatlantic routes that year from London Gatwick I believe were Houston (the jewel), Dallas, Atlanta, JFK, and LAX. New York had been a 747 the previous year but got cut back to a DC-10 when business fell, while the 747 went in exchange onto LGW-Dubai-Hong Kong.
Must have been about that time that we were in commercial contact with a farm business not far from Gatwick. They were a dairy consolidator, and every day they shipped 2 tons of refrigerated milk in individual one pint cartons by B Cal from there to Dubai, where a local distributor did very well with bulk orders to embassies, oil companies, construction companies, hotels, etc. I seem to remember it sold for about 20 times the UK price at the time.
Sorry about that,
WHBM. In the case of
BA, the widebodies it operated to any London airports out of the New York market were the 747 and the L-1011 with the L10 being limited to a single daily flight (JFK-LHR). All other flights were operated with 747s. And, as ever I stand corrected.
B-Cal did indeed operate a single daily 747 (BR 268 JFK-LGW) At quick glance that
BR looked like a
BA on the faded pages of my OAG. Everybody else (
PA, TW, CO, LY, VS, AI & KU) operated 747s between New York and London. No McDonnell-Douglas or Airbus built jets served this market - at least not per the OAG I referenced for the question.